


fragile recollections

by cherubique



Series: amicitia - when everyone lives [4]
Category: Oxenfree (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Protective Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 13:27:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20528765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherubique/pseuds/cherubique
Summary: Michael is suntanning after going swimming, and the sight of him facedown on the pier triggers some difficult memories for Clarissa and Alex. In the weeks after the trip to Edward’s Island, he’s been having a hard time trying to make sense of everything- and coping less well than Alex thinks he has been.





	fragile recollections

**Author's Note:**

> i HAD to quote oscar wilde in this...

Michael doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s simply soaking up the last dredges of summer. He’s face down on the wooden pier, peering through the cracks in the weathered boards to look at the tide rushing in, bringing with it a foamy lip of bubbles and smoothed rocks that tumble towards the shoreline. His dark brown hair sticks to the nape of his neck, damp after splashing around in the water. Sunscreen hasn’t been fully rubbed into the skin over his shoulders, and that expanse is whitened, streaky. Michael breathes shallowly, body slack and relaxed. His too big white tank top and black boarding shorts flutter limply in a tepid excuse for an ocean breeze.

That doesn’t stop Alex’s heart from wrenching itself nearly out of her ribcage at the sight. It’s a sharp pain, and she staggers. One hand slaps open palmed overtop of her sternum, breath ragged. Her eyes are wide, pupils contracted to tiny pinpoints. Clarissa notices, grabbing a hold of her just above the elbow. She holds her there, making sure that Alex doesn’t faceplant onto the hot sand, though she dry swallows grimly.

Clarissa knows well enough to let Alex go, when she’s found her footing again- surging forwards desperately, throwing sand up in huge clumps and nearly falling over herself in her dash towards Michael. In her haste, she loses one of her flip flops, lying impertinently hot pink in the dun sand. Clarissa silently moves to pick it up, dangling over her finger as she stares out at the two of them, eyes dark with inscrutable emotion. Her shoulders are hunched inwards, posture smaller, more diminutive than normal.

“Michael!” His name breaks through over the soothing rush of the water, the odd circling gull pinwheeling in tightening circles, silent sentinels overhead. Alex is still sprinting over at her top speed, heedless of the hot sand against her bare sole, or the sharp edge of rocks chipped off from the surrounding cliffs and quarry. A single smouldering menthol cigarette stub lets off a tiny plume of smoke upwards, and she deftly sidesteps that hot ember. Just barely.

Michael startles at the raw panic in Alex’s voice. He pushes himself upward, palms rough against the wood, already scrambling up to his feet. He looks just as panicked, until he sees her. There’s no blood, no limbs hanging at crooked angles, and she seems to be walking just fine on her own- so he holds his arms out for her, wraps her up in a hug when she crashes into him, limbs reckless and scrabbling for a hold. He thinks she’s liable to tear holes into the tanktop, with the way she’s wringing a fistful of the thin fabric. He rests his head on hers, cheek against Alex’s roots. They’ve been growing in as of late, maybe an inch or so of vivid auburn. He shushes her gently, cradling her.

“What’s wrong, Als?” He asks, voice gentle. He doesn’t want to push her away, but he does need to make sure that she’s alright. So when Alex pulls away on her own, he puts his hands on her shoulders, eyes flickering up and down to assess for any injuries again. “You’re alright, right?” She only nods at that, eyes bright with tears, and he pulls her back in again. One hand rubs down her shoulders blades soothingly, mirroring where sunscreen is smeared in a thin film across his own, the stark white of angel’s wings.

“I just- you scared me,” Alex says, the admission limping out a little shamefacedly. “You were face down-” and Michael has been in this conversation enough times before to know what’s rankling at Alex. Ever since the trip to Edward’s Island, which he remembers as mostly a mundane rambling over the cliffs and splashing around in the shallows, Alex has been a little more on edge around water than is normal. She’s never been particularly enthused about being dragged along to the local swimming pool, complaining that the rec center reeked of chlorine- or even out to the beach, bemoaning the grittiness of the sand and cloying seaweed, but she’d never been driven to hysterics by it before. 

His recall of the incident is a little fuzzy, but there must have been a mountaineering accident near the waterfalls. He remembers the wind howling, strong enough to feel like a hand was pressing him flat against the ground. It would make sense that she was afraid, scrabbling against the water slickened surface of the cliffs, shale and granite cutting into the soft palms of her hands, chalk long sweated off. 

At least, Michael assumes that there must have been chalk in his pockets, maybe a smudge of it on his fingertips. It was like him to be the practical one, to bring a little something extra along for the ride in case they ran out. The winds had pushed her around, carrying snatches of the odd sea shanty and refrain, - this part he especially remembers, a shiver rising along his spine at the crooning of a woman’s voice, low and calling to him plaintively, and he feels like he ought to know who she is, somehow - and Alex had cracked a rib from slamming into the slippery rock face.

The bottom of her stomach must have dropped out, the same terrifying plunge of rollercoasters skittering along loop-de-loops, the wind knocked out of her. The safety restraint had become frayed, maybe, leaving her dangling over the sharp gorge, tiny against the rushing water. Windmilling in small circles, limbs scrabbling for purchase, screaming for him- he remembers her voice, thrown around, distorted a little due to the distance from the top of the climb, like songs floating in on their old school handheld radio. It had a bright little sun sticker with scribbled sharpie shades on the round knob, with a bit of yellowing packing tape keeping it securely in place and safe from the elements. He remembers her saying his name. At least- he thinks he does. He’s pretty sure he would remember something like that.

He _definitely_ remembers Clarissa being upset about him skiving off of Nona’s birthday party. That had been a few days after the trip, Michael hurriedly hanging up on her when they finally let him into the hospital room Alex had been bundled up into by concerned staff in mint green gowns. She’d tried to put on a brave face, and smiled wobbly, quipping that at least her hair didn’t clash too badly with the dress code around here. 

Clarissa had called to ask ahead of time- no, demand that he show up to the party as a show of solidarity for Nona. Nona had been taking the events of the trip ‘pretty hard’ and while Michael wasn’t one to deny that - who was he to judge how people had coped with seeing a freak accident - it seemed apparent to him that the person who needed a ‘show of solidarity’ the most right now was his sister. And Alex wasn’t in any state to go partying- not even to be propped up in some ugly paisley arm chair and smile wanly out at everyone else. Clarissa had been having none of it. 

The colour mint had left him irrationally snapping at Jonas for days afterwards. Afterwards, Michael figured it was because of the menthol cigarettes that he smoked- associating the colour with the scent. In the moment, he just knew he was pissed off, and seeing Jonas’ face chafed at him like ants crawling industriously across his skin. Jonas had merely brought his shoulders up around his ears as he huddled into his jacket, seeming to only sullenly take Michael’s outbursts into stride.

Nothing seemed to faze him. For some reason, this burrowed underneath Michael’s skin, infuriated him. Made him get up into his face, a finger prodding his chest, smelling the reek of nicotine and stale smoke coming off of his clothing, the chalkiness of ashes smeared into his skin and radiating off of his hair, jabbing to punctuate every vitriolic word that tripped off of his tongue fraught with painful worrying over Alex. He didn’t bring up his mother - some lines were too far gone to cross, and Michael knew this, respected it even if he didn’t respect Jonas - but came close to straddling that dangerous line. It was a blind critique of everything from his shoddy posture to the holes fraying at the knee of his jeans.

No matter what Michael said, Jonas simply blinked calmly at him, eyes half lidded and expression carefully composed to be neutral. Everything rolled off of Jonas’ shoulders. He simply didn’t seem to care.

Michael wondered what it was like, not having to be the one perpetually frying underneath the white-hot spotlight of an entire town’s scrutiny. Underneath the leaden weight of expectations, scaffolded up by past and present achievements, the projected goals and milestones to crush in the rapidly marching closer future. It must be nice, being able to be so impenetrably cool, closed off from others- to not have to worry about a baby sister.

Clarissa had cried, afterwards- yelling down the line at him about _normalcy_ as if Nona’s birthday party had been a lifeline she’d clung fast to, only for him to rip it out of her hands at the last second and leaving rope burn in his wake. He couldn’t understand why a birthday party meant so goddamn much to her, and he’d told her just about as much. What mattered to him was his sister. What mattered to him was Alex.

She’d been silent, breathing quietly into the end of the line, and he’d hung up abruptly, seething. It wasn’t often that Michael lost his temper- and he’d regretted it, afterwards. In between checking in on Alex to make sure that she was still breathing while napping in her bedroom, a nervous habit of his from childhood, he’d stood out on the porch with his phone cradled in the crook of his shoulder and neck, hanging up and redialing and frustratedly searching for words that he didn’t have to apologize to her. The thing was, he wasn’t sorry. Any apology he tried to cobble together rung hollow because of it. Alex had always been, and would always be his priority. That was something he would never apologize for.

The doctors had sent Alex home to heal- apparently it was the sort of injury you could recuperate from in the comfort of your own bedroom, given no internal organs had been damaged in the collision. No need to coop her up in the hospital that reeked of antiseptic and bleach. There was some spectacular bruising across her ribcage, but it was superficial, and he’d been sent home with a timeline of six weeks, a spirometer, a little fluffy pillow to hold against her ribs while he coached her through gentle breathing and coughing exercises every two hours to stave off lung collapse or pneumonia, a handful of over the counter pain tablets and a truck load of worry. It seemed counterintuitive, that she had to remain active, rather than resting in bed all day. But he’d walked with Alex through the neighbourhood, keeping the pace a leisurely stroll, taking advantage of the chance to point out tiny pockets of green space throughout Camena and the wildlife that occupied it. He followed the doctors’ orders to a strict tee and then some. Anything to help.

He looks over Alex’s shoulder. Clarissa stands there, dark under eye circles smudged across her face, looking withdrawn and exhausted, tension pulled taut across her shoulder blades. Her red hair’s been messily cropped, a little uneven, in what on better days she might call an asymmetrical bob and on worse days, _none of your business._ He knows that she trims it with kitchen scissors meant to snip through the silver underbellies of fish whenever her hands shake with the need for change, to be able to control something external about herself. 

He doesn’t know where that particular neuroticism came from. There’s a lot Michael doesn’t know, these days. About Clarissa or not. One of Alex’s pink flipflops is hanging loosely from her hand, and when she rubs her arm lightly in a self soothing gesture, Michael has to look away. He squeezes Alex a little tighter.

The two stand there for awhile, Michael protectively holding onto Alex. Even now he’s careful to not crush her where her ribs were tender for weeks. He adjusts his position a little when the winds blow, so that the cold air rippling over top of the ocean raises goosebumps along his arms, whips his hair into disarray. It dries his hair out, sticking out in ridiculous salt stiffened flips and curls, and Alex looks up at him and laughs a little, even with her eyes still watering and a little puffy from crying. 

Alex cries a lot more, these days. 

The sound of her laughing makes Michael’s chest ache with the surge of emotion rushing upwards, and he closes his eyes, knowing that everything is going to be alright, now. She’s going to be just fine.

In the car ride home, with the beach towel wrapped over her shoulders and gritty sand chafing against her skin, Alex looks over at Clarissa through the veil of her dark lashes. Clarissa still looks shaken, eyes vacantly fixed outside of the rolling landscape. Michael is humming in the front seat, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to the thrumming of the radio. Both girls tried not to flinch when he’d initially had some trouble cruising through the stations, crackling static filling the dead air. Both girls tried, and failed, to not stare at the back of Michael’s hair- so recently, and so long ago, plastered flat against his skull by water.

Alex reaches out first, fingers skittering over the scant inches between the both of them in the backseat. It’s Michael’s truck, an inherited hand-me-down from their father. It used to be a lurid neon green, a monstrous eye sore- and she and Michael had taken it upon themselves to give it a lustrous blue patina, a good ol’ boy pick up truck classic. It still clunks a little sometimes when the ignition’s first started, but for the most part, it drives like a dream.

Her chewed down fingernails touch lightly against Clarissa’s fingers, her palms splayed on the leather of the seat, unmoving. She could have wrenched her hand back when she noticed Alex closing the distance between, but she didn’t. Alex looks up then, trying to catch a glimpse of Clarissa’s expression.

There’s a softness in her face that Alex has never seen before, at least not directed towards her- with Nona, sure, Clarissa brushing back a length of dark hair behind Nona’s ear peeping out from beneath her slouching beanie and grinning with a birthday cake in a paper box tied with red ribbon. But never Alex.

So Alex leaves her hand there, their fingertips brushing, for the rest of the car ride. She doesn’t want to shatter the fragility that hovers delicately in the air. Trying to pin down a name to it seems sacrilegious, as if in defining it, she’d limit it. It’s whisper thin, painfully tangible even as neither girl moves to address it- an airiness implied by light, the soft silken strands of a spiderweb barely seen in just the right angle. A hint at something more, at something yet to come.

It is, of course, born of a mutual understanding that they can never tell Michael what exactly happened on, and as a result of that island- an island that they both remember in piecemeal fragments, a kaleidoscope of half developed polaroids and crumpled up notes. An island where Alex didn’t fracture her ribs because of something as mundane as a mountaineering incident. An island where ghosts and bodily possession were just as solid, and real, and tangible, as Michael’s hand curled tight around the wheel, sunkissed and glowing. They both know, and their knowing ties them together with something that Michael won’t ever understand- a jarring exclusion of a boy who means so much to the both of them.

For the first time in her life, as Michael drives over speedbumps that make the car rattle and shake and jump over scratchily unmaintained bits of road, the way her heart’s leapt it’s way up into her throat, Alex thinks that she finally understands what the word _fragile_ really means.


End file.
